ERIC ED461107: Guidelines for a Gender-Balanced Curriculum in English, Grades 7-12.

11 Pages·1997·0.15 MB·English

by  ERIC

DOCUMENT RESUME
ED 461 107 CS 216 060
Guidelines for a Gender-Balanced Curriculum in English,
TITLE
Grades 7-12.
National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, IL.
INSTITUTION
PUB DATE 1997-00-00
10p.; Prepared by the NCTE Committee on Women in the
NOTE
Profession.
AVAILABLE FROM National Council of Teachers of English Order Department,
1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801-1906 (Stock No. 19654:
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Authors; *English Curriculum; English Departments; English
DESCRIPTORS
Instruction; English Literature; *Females; *Fiction; *Gender
Issues; Information Sources; North American Literature;
*Secondary Education; *Sex Fairness
Curriculum Balance; *Womens Literature
IDENTIFIERS
ABSTRACT
Noting that women authors are still underrepresented and
females are often stereotyped, these guidelines, prepared by the National
Council of Teachers of English Committee on Women in the Profession, urge all
English Departments to integrate literature by and about women into the
curriculum. The guidelines discuss why balancing the curriculum matters and
what can be done--offering nine suggestions for action, such as including
selections by or about women every quarter of the school year, putting gender
balance on the departmental meeting agenda, and inviting a knowledgeable
woman writer or critic to speak about women's literature. The guidelines
recommend a bibliography on women's literature and several reading selections
for information. Also offered is a selected list of recommended books by or
,
about women to help in developing a balanced curriculum for grades 7-12,
subdivided into sections on grades 7 and 8, grades 9 and 10, grade 11, and
grade 12. A list of short stories, many available in anthologies, is also
included.
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Guidelines for a Gender-Balanced
Curriculum in English, Grades 7-12
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GUIDELINES FOR A GENDER-BALANCED CURRICULUM IN ENGLISH GRADES 7-12
Prepared by the NCTE Committee on Women in the Profession
The NCTE Committee on Women in the Profession urges all English departments to integrate literature
by and about women into the curriculum during the 1990s. Despite significant changes in many academic
disciplines and in fiction and nonfiction, women authors are still underrepresented and females are often
stereotyped.
Why Does Balancing the Curriculum Matter?
Role models in books, as in life, help female and male students shape their own experiences. Balancing
the curriculum allows all students to see themselves as doers and thinkers and as persistent and
successful.
To balance the curriculum, we need to incorporate literature by and about women into our courses. We
need to learn to recognize and appreciate different genres (diaries, letters), different styles (spontaneous,
circular), and different tones (intimate, emotional). As we add women's writing to the curriculum, we will
enhance our concept of what it is to be human.
What Can Be Done?
First, all teachers must care more about developing a gender-balanced curriculum. We have to discuss
this issue at all educational levels.
The following suggestions for balancing the curriculum are discussed more fully by Margaret Anne Zeller
Carlson in her article in the October 1989 issue of English Journal, "Guidelines for a Gender-Balanced
Curriculum in English Journal, Grades 7-12":
1. Include some selections by or about women every quarter of the school year. Try out a recommended
title and discover how it can fit with some familiar theme. Take a play like A Raisin in the Sun and
highlight it in terms of your own neighborhood, or a story like "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" and
connect it to modern considerations of marriages and families.
2. Use books in pairs. Introduce a woman's work beside that of a man' s, perhaps in such clear
comparisons as Richard Wright's Black Boy and Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Build a semester course around such works as John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath and Harriette Arnow's
Dollmaker, contrasting not only the city-country settings, the family lives, dilemmas, and/or solutions, but
also the portrayal of American values developing through the first half of the twentieth century. Or take
two straightforward short stories, such as Frank O'Connor's "First Confession" and Jean Stafford's"Bad
Characters," for direct comparison contrast. Try two stories such as F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Winter
Dreams" and Alice Munro's "Red Dress," and see how your students compare the experiences of these
young people.
3. Experiment with narrative writing. Invite students to write short-short stories and then analyze
together the number of male and female central characters and the kinds of behaviors shown. Are there
any clear observations that stand out? Do any of them suggest stereotyping that the whole class can
consider? A similar idea would be to ask students for.titles of their favorite books or films and to analyze
them in the same way.
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4. Look at the video selections used in English courses. How representative are they? In addition to
Budd, The Great Gatsby, and Death of a Salesman, where women are not included at all or are shown
only in tangential or negative roles, include The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, A Doll's House,
and Three Sovereigns for Sarah. Or choose to compare a book and a video such as Catcher in the Rye
and My Brilliant Career, both focusing on the quandary of young people growing up with points of view
that are different from those held by most of the family and society around them.
5. Put gender balance on the agenda for your departmental meeting and discuss the merits and/or
problems of the topic with honesty and openness: invite colleagues to consider questions they might raise
if the percentages of gender representation in literature were reversed or if their reading centered
primarily on characters of the opposite sex.
6. Involve the principal in your work by sharing these guidelines and other articles you may find. The
principal, in many cases, by verbal support alone can influence teachers and departments to consider the
importance of possible changes or additions to the curriculum.
7. Form an all-school committee to focus on bringing more works by women into the curriculum.
8. Write for assistance. For example, contact the National Women's Studies Association, University of
Maryland, College Park, MiD 20742-1325; The Feminist Press, 311 East 94th Street, New York, NY
10128; your state and federal offices for equal opportunity.
9. Invite a knowledgeable woman writer or critic to speak about women's literature.
10. Persist.
Finding Out More
Real solutions will happen only when all teachers make a serious attempt to balance a curriculum for
themselves through discussion with others and through current resource materials:
To Include Us All. Patricia Berry, 1988.
A bibliography available through the Wellesley College Centre for Research on Women (Wellesley, MA
02181), this collection of titles is presented as a base for establishing curriculum integration and library
collection development. It reviews prose, poetry, autobiography, and collected anthologies and includes
critical studies in women's literature.
Reconstructing American Literature. Paul Lauter. Feminist Press, 1983, 249 pp. $10.95. ISBN
0-935372- 14-5.
Although this book refers chiefly to college courses, it has an enormous number of references and
suggestions that would be helpful at the secondary level.
Listening to All Voices: Gender Balancing the School Curriculum. Oak Knoll School of the Holy Child
(Summit, NJ), 1986, 40 pp. $3.00.
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This booklet brings together the papers and talks presented at the Oak Knoll Conference on Gender
Integration. Articles by Peggy MacIntosh on "Interactive Phases of Curricula Revision" and Harriet
Marcus and Patricia Mahoney on "A High School English Curriculum" offer specific suggestions and
thoughtful analyses of many of the implications of gender issues.
In addition to these bibliographies and articles, the following four books deserve special mention as
primary sources of material written by women. These anthologies of every genre, of every time period
and country, offer as many examples as we could wish of writing that could be shared at the secondary
level.
Women and Fiction. Susan Cahill. New American Library, 1975, 379 pp. $4.50. ISBN 0-451-617274.
Images of Women in Literature. Mary Ann Ferguson. Houghton Mifflin, 1986, 606 pp. $19.50. ISBN
0395-36908-8.
The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar. Norton, 1985, 2,457
pp. $19.95. ISBN 0-393-95391-2.
By Women: An Anthology of Literature. Linda Kirschner and Marcia Folsom. Houghton Mifflin, 1976.
478 pp. $15.95. ISBN 0-396-20500-X.
To paraphrase Adrienne Rich (1979) in her provocative article "Taking Women Students Seriously,"
teachers of English have two choices: "to lend our weight to the forces that indoctrinate women to
passivity, self-deprecation, and a sense of powerlessness," or to look equally to the lives and experiences
of both men and women, as we seek to create literary and language opportunities for both genders (240).
As Nannerl Keohane (1984) said in a recent address, "We've come a ways, but we've got a ways to go"
(30).
Selected List of Recommended Books by or about Women to Help in Developing a Balanced
Curriculum, Grades 7-12*
Grades 7 and 8
Little Women Louisa May Alcott
The Cat Ate My Gymsuit Paula Danziger
Stranger with My Face Lois Duncan
Summer of My German Soldier Bette Greene
Up a Road Slowly Irene Hunt
I'll Love You When You're More Like Me M. E. Kerr
Annie John Jamaica Kincaid
Mom, the Wolfman and Me Norma Klein
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Many Waters Madeleine L'Engle
A Wizard of Earthsea Ursula K. Le Guin
Island of the Blue Dolphins Scott O'Dell
True Grit Charles Portis
The Witch of Blackbird Pond Elizabeth Speare
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry Mildred Taylor
The Other Side of the Mountain E.G. Valens
Dicey's Song
Cynthia Voigt
Grades 9 and 10
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou
Tiger Eyes Judy Blume
Wedding Days: And Other Stories Kay Boyle
The Mists of Avalon Marion Zimmer Bradley
Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
Out of Africa Isak Dinesen
Rebecca Daphne du Maurier
*This is not intended as a complete listing but as a useffil group of suggestions for schools looking for
titles.
Mrs. Mike Benedict and Nancy Freedman
The Revolt of Mother (and Other Stories) Mary Wilkins Freeman
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman Ernest J. Gaines
The Miracle Worker William Gibson
Trifles Susan Glaspell
A Raisin in the Sun Lorraine Hansberry
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Farewell to Manzanar Jeanne and James Houston
The Flame Trees of Thika Elspeth Huxley
Stories ("The Lottery') Shirley Jackson
A White Heron and Other Stories Sarah Orne Jewett
The Story of My Life Helen Keller
The Woman Warrior Maxine Kingston
Breaking Up Norma Klein
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
Memories of a Catholic Girlhood Mary McCarthy
The Member of the Wedding Carson McCullers
Nectar in a Sieve Kamala Markandaya
Coming of Age in Mississippi Anne Moody
Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
Tisha Robert Specht
Grade 11
Little Women Louisa May Alcott
The Dollmaker Harriette Arnow
The Clan of the Cave Bear Jean Auel
Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
Women and Fiction, Vols. I, II, III Susan Cahill (stories)
My Antonia; The Troll Garden Willa Cather
Life in the Iron-Mills Rebecca Harding Davis
Poetry Emily Dickinson
Short Stories Mary Wilkins Freeman
The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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The Little Foxes Lillian Hellman
A Doll's House Henrik Ibsen
The Bluest Eye/Sula Toni Morrison
Short Stories Flannery O'Connor
Yonnondio Tillie Olsen
The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath
Ceremony Leslie Silko
Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe
Jubilee Margaret Walker
The Wide Net, and Other Stories Eudora Welty
Our Nig Harriet Wilson
Grade 12
Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck
Silent Spring Rachel Carson
My Mortal Enemy Willa Cather
The Awakening Kate Chopin
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Annie Dillard
The Mill on the Floss George Eliot
The Lying Days Nadine Gordimer
Their Eyes Were Watching God Nora Zeale Hurston
The Grass is Singing Doris Lessing
Lives of Girls and Women Alice Munro
Women of Brewster Place Gloria Naylor
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'Night, Mother Marsha Norman
The Little Disturbances of Man Grace Paley
Stories (Portable Collection of) Dorothy Parker
Collected Stories Katherine Anne Porter
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark
Collected Stories Jean Stafford
The Mountain Lion Jean Stafford
Kristin Lavransdatter Sigrid Undset
The Color Purple Alice Walker
The House of Mirth Edith Wharton
To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf
A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf
Short Stories: Many available in anthologies, cited in "Finding Out More." (C) Cahill, (F) Ferguson, (G)
Gilbert, (K) Kirschner.
Ann Beattie "Tuesday Night" (F)
Toni Cade Bambara "My Man Bovanne" (G)
Kate Chopin "Story of an Hour"
Laurie Colvin "Animal Behavior"
Margaret Drabble "The Gifts of War" (C)
Mary Wilkins Freeman "A New England Nun" (K) "The Revolt of Mother" (G) "Old Woman Magoun"
Nadine Gordimer "My First Two Women" (K) "Town and Country Lovers" (G)
Shirley Jackson "The Lottery"
Sarah Orne Jewett "Aunt Cynthy Dallet"
Doris Lessing "An Old Woman and Her Cat" (K)
Katherine Mansfield "The Garden Party" "Her First Ball" (K)
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Mary McCarthy "A Tin Butterfly" (K)
Carson McCullars "Wunderkind" (0)
Alice Munro "The Red Dress", "Forgiveness in Families"
Tillie Olsen "I Stand Here Ironing" (K)
Joyce Carol Oates "By the North Gate" (K)
Cynthia Ozick "Shawl"
Grace Paley "An Interest in Life" "Samuel" (G)
Dorothy Parker "You Were Perfectly Fine" (G)
Katherine Anne Porter "Rope" (G) "Jilting of Granny Weatherall"
Alice Walker "Everyday Use" (G)
Eudora Welty "A Worn Path"(C)"A Visit of Charity"
Jessamyn West "The Condemned Librarian" (K)
Rebecca West "Indissoluble Matrimony" (G)
Edith Wharton "The Other Two"
Works Cited:
Rich, Adrienne, 1979. "Taking Women Students Seriously." On Lies, Secrets and Silence. New York:
Norton. 237-45.
Single copies of this statement ate available ftee upon request, and may be copied without permission
from NCTE. Multiple copies are available at a bulk rate of U.S. $7 per 100, prepaid
only.Stock#19654.Send request to NCTE Order Department, 1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL
61801-1906.
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